BPK 140 Lecture Notes - Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, Human Papillomavirus Infection, Sexually Transmitted Infection
16 Jan 2014
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Document Summary
Life comes from other life and disease comes from germs (and a few other things: infectious diseases. A disease is any deviation from normal functioning. An infectious disease is a disease in which a pathogen is present and may multiply. Of course, this does not include, for example, mercury poisoning: pathogens. A pathogen is an agent that produces disease. Types of pathogens include the following: bacteria. These are single-celled organisms with their own dna and no membrane bound organelles. About 1500 are well classified and about 100 of these are pathogens. Some bacteria are very helpful to aid us in such things as digestion of food in our intestines (remember the intestines are outside of us). The inside of our body is virtually sterile. Bacteria within our body are almost always pathogenic and attacked by our immune system. Those bacteria that survive the body"s defenses multiply and cause infection. The infection can occur in virtually any tissue in our body.
